Charles Ritchie

(above) Charles Ritchie, Night with Orion (work in progress, 27 March 2008), 11 1/4 x 15″, graphite and pen and ink on Fabriano paper

My passion for the constellations of the night sky began as a young child. I learned names and tried to orient myself by their locations very early. Orion was one of the first constellations I grasped and it remains an annual benchmark for me; Orion rising again: it must be winter. Orion setting again; it must be spring.

I remember a very cold, starry night in high school walking over to my friend’s house and thinking to myself, I’ll be looking at that same constellation as an old man. Funny, how I think of that almost every time I spy Orion again. It reminds me of the poem Anecdote of the Jar by Wallace Stevens. I buried a symbolic jar walking down the road that night, and from that moment on Orion takes dominion everywhere:

I’ve always wanted to engage Orion as a subject in my art, but have had a hard time finding the right context. One evening several years ago, about this time of year when the trees are just about to fill with leaves; I stepped out on my deck and looked up to see Orion hanging in tree branches. I moved from study in my journal to a graphite drawing of the subject whose composition expanded to include the familiar panorama of houses on my street (see Night with Orion, first state, 12 December 2007). The subject is the same as my drawing Blue Twilight, but seen in late winter rather than summer. I’ve been working three years now, building up layers of graphite on my Night with Orion drawing. Just this winter I added another layer to the image; a full winter’s dreams inscribed in tight horizontal bands across the image with pen and ink (see images above and below). This layer of writing added depth and value on several levels of the work. However, the drawing has a long way to go. I am patient.

The stars of Orion are located in the same part the galaxy as our solar system, the local arm. While one likes to think of constellations as permanent, they are not. As the locations of stars are always changing incrementally, Orion, like all constellations, is transient. Wikipedia says: “Orion will remain visible in the night sky for the next 1 to 2 million years, making it one of the longest observable constellations, parallel to the rise of human civilization” (Orion: History). I bury a jar in the field of stars that is Orion, but the constellation itself is really just another passing illusion.

(below) Charles Ritchie, Night with Orion (detail)

(above) Photograph of the artist’s drawing and writing on clear Mylar featuring a pen and ink study after Self-Portrait with Night: Side Panels I (above, at left), and handwritten texts in Rapidograph ink (above, at right) and in sumi ink (lower, at right). The drawings on Mylar will be photographically transfered to a printing plate to begin the print.

Part 1: Drawing test on Mylar

Jim Stroud of Center Street Studio, printer and publisher, has invited me to work on a new print project. Jim’s wife, artist Janine Wong suggested that I make a variation on my accordion journal/drawings. These are folded drawings that I created in 1986 and 1987. See image below. I’m envisioning my new print will evolve as series of studies based around the drawings that I am currently creating. The print will be printed and then folded, accordion-style at the end of the project. Each panel of the accordion-fold will be 4 x 6 inches, the page size of my current journals.

First we will do some tests to find an effective way to transfer my drawing/writing to the printing plate. I will work on clear Mylar that accepts pen and ink and send it to Jim. Jim will place the Mylar face down on a photographically-sensitized printing plate, expose the plate to a strong light, and then develop the plate. Hopefully the writing will be transferred to the plate in clear, precise detail. Because the Mylar was reversed, the writing will re-reverse when printed and read correctly.

Using my 4×0 Rapidograph pen on the Mylar, the ink seemed too thin. I doubt that it would be dark enough block the light which is the key to a solid transfer to the printing plate. I found some sumi ink that is much darker and flows beautifully from the tiny point of my dip pen; but the sumi is not waterproof. The slightest moisture could re-wet the ink. I will use the non-waterproof ink and take precautions to keep the Mylar dry. I’ve also done a copy of a drawing that I’m currently working on, Self-Portrait with Night: Side Panels I . I’ll mail the Mylars to Jim for him to transfer to the plate. Although the drawing and writing will eventually be printed on the same sheet, each will go on a different printing plate because they require different handling in the development process. (To be continued)

Charles Ritchie, Accordion Drawing, 1986, watercolor, graphite, and pen and ink on Arches paper, approx. 4 x 30″ (uncatalogued). The forthcoming print project will be based on the format of this series of drawings.

(above) Charles Ritchie, Two Journals, 2005, watercolor, graphite, and pen and ink on Arches paper in bound volumes, page size: 4 x 6″.

Between 1952 to 1954 writer Jack Kerouac kept little notebooks in his shirt pockets vowing to jot the streets down like a painter would paint them. In 1957 he transcribed the notes from these fifteen pads into his Book of Sketches a volume that has rarely strayed from my bedside since it was published in 2006. I love the raw energy of Kerouac’s writing of this period. His economy of means and the vivid intensity of his descriptions are the product of a man on fire with the energy of everything he is seeing. The visual acuity of Kerouac’s work has been a model for the way I want to put things into my book. Not so much his content, but his urgency and sense of discovery. This means for both my writing and painting. Kerouac has an intuitive sense of using just the right elements to make his descriptions pop; no excess. I can imagine having his book with him at the moment the inspiration struck. For me, that’s the magic of carrying a journal and working in watercolor. No need to set up. Just waiting for the fire.

An excellent review of Book of Sketches with examples of Kerouac’s writing is here.

Printmaking techniques deliver results you can get no other way. My favorite example is my aquatint, Sky from the portfolio Five Days/Five Nights. I have been trying to achieve soft-edged clouds like these in watercolor for years, but the task of dissolving many complex watercolor edges at once is impossible because the paper dries too quickly. An intricate field of graduated tones as seen in Sky is easily achieved in aquatint.

To make an aquatint, very fine particles are sprinkled across the printing plate and attached by heating the plate. Acid mixed with Karo syrup is used to paint selectively on the plate; diluting the acid cuts it to the proper potency while keeping it from simply beading up on the metal plate. The mixture burns into the printing plate wherever it is applied cutting microscopic channels around the tiny particles adhered to the plate. These recessions hold the printing ink.

To create the clouds in Sky, the aquatinted plate was first painted in selected areas with clear Karo syrup containing no acid. These points are the areas where I wanted white clouds to appear, so acid is gently blocked at these points. I then painted on top with acid mixed with brown Karo. Unprotected areas of the copper printing plate were eaten into while slowly breaking down the edges of the clear blocking Karo syrup which created the soft gradations of tone.

The impetus for the Sky image came to me while working at Center Street Studio print workshop in Boston. After a particularly grueling and unsuccessful day in the shop we went to printer/publisher Jim Stroud’s rooftop. The cumulus clouds that rushed by us were nothing but pure inspiration. The next morning I dove into a small aquatinted plate with the Karo syrup/acid mixture, working without sketches. The adventure with this plate was the turning point in my five days of experimentation which resulted in the portfolio of ten aquatints Five Days/Five Nights.

(above) Photograph of the artist’s spitbite aquatint worktable as it looked in April 1999 at Center Street Studio in Boston, Massachusetts. Printer James Stroud is in the background. The term spitbite aquatint means that the acid was selectively applied to the printing plate rather than immersing the plate in an acid bath. The term spitbite is derived from the fact that saliva was in earlier times mixed with the acid rather than a gum substance such as Karo syrup. Note: the acid is actually a caustic agent, Ferric Chloride. Also note, the photograph above shows the artist’s journal, the image source for many of the Five Days/Five Nights prints, held open with clamps in front of a small mirror, a method that subverts the natural image reversal that occurs in printmaking.

(above) The ten proofs for Five Days/Five Nights are seen at right on the proofing wall at Center Street Studio.